


Fragmented

by Eggling



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: M/M, Season 6B, a lot of angst but also fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-13
Updated: 2017-04-13
Packaged: 2018-10-18 10:07:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10614693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eggling/pseuds/Eggling
Summary: Regaining memories is a complicated business.





	

The Doctor all but fell into his arms before he could even puzzle out the impossible sight of a blue box fading into existence. Jamie stepped back, gripping him by the shoulders and holding him out at arm’s length, trying to make sense of his frantic words.

“Oh, Jamie, I’ve been so worried!” he exclaimed, tugging on Jamie’s sleeve as if to lead him away. “I thought I might be too late, and I wasn’t sure whether I was going to get you back at all, and I’ve missed you so much -”

“I dinnae understand,” Jamie interrupted him. “Why have ye come back?”

“For you, of course!” The Doctor gestured at the empty expanse of moorland surrounding them, as if to emphasise Jamie himself as the only attractive feature. “How long has it been?”

“A week, maybe. I dinnae really remember.”

“Not to worry.” Jamie found himself being pulled towards the box, and dug his heels into the ground. Somehow this seemed familiar – but something, someone, was missing.

“Where’s Ben and Polly?” he asked.

“They’re -” The Doctor’s eyes widened in realisation, and he tapped one finger thoughtfully against his lips. “Of course. They haven’t removed the memory block, the idiotic, bureaucratic – well, that doesn’t matter.” He clasped his hands together, as if to beg for a favour. “Jamie, do you trust me?”

“Aye, of course I do! Ye saved my life, remember?”

“Splendid.”

The Doctor released his arm, reaching up to place the tips of his fingers gently against Jamie’s temples. For a brief moment, Jamie wondered what the point of this could be. Before he could pull away, however, he felt something that he could only describe as another presence pressing gently on the edge of his consciousness, reaching out towards him. Instinctively, he reached back, and gasped at the shock of contact. Somehow, he knew it was the Doctor. Despite the intensity of it, he felt at peace, as if the Doctor were cradling him, cradling an odd kind of closeness for a moment.

 _Not long now, Jamie_. The thought was not his own. _I just have to find – ah. Here_.

There was a little stream of _gently, now_ and _don’t want to hurt him_ before the Doctor stumbled back, the connection vanishing like mist in sunlight, and Jamie remembered. Stepping into the TARDIS – Cybermen and Macra and travelling in time – and most of all, the Doctor.

“Do you know me now?” The Doctor asked, sounding almost nervous.

“Aye,” Jamie said, a little shakily. “Aye, I remember ye.”

“Everything?”

“I think so.”

“Then you don’t mind if I, ah...” The Doctor twisted his hands together nervously. “That is, you do remember that we...”

Jamie leant forwards and kissed him quiet, the Doctor letting out a little noise of surprise, then of contentment, pulling Jamie closer by the waist. He gave a little murmur of distress as the Doctor pulled back – it felt so long since he had seen him last, and quite apart from struggling to understand how he could have forgotten and been returned to Culloden, the Doctor seemed so hesitant, as if it had been even longer for him.

“Not here,” the Doctor whispered. This time, Jamie let himself be guided towards the TARDIS and led inside. As he took in the console room, some part of himself – a part which he had found and lost and found again, a part which he was determined to never let go of from now on – whispered home.

The Doctor was flitting around the console, saying something about permissions and favours and Time Lords. Jamie wondered whether he was simply overwhelmed from all that had happened, or whether the Doctor really was making very little sense.

“I still dinnae understand,” he put in. “What happened? Why did I forget ye?”

“Well – because the Time Lords sent you – my people wiped your memory and returned you to your own time.” The Doctor looked up at him pleadingly.

“But I’ve never met your people.”

“Oh.” The Doctor sounded so very lost. Jamie wanted to wrap him up in his arms and never let go, but he sensed that it would not fix anything, that this was something he could not protect the Doctor from. “Oh, Jamie. You don’t remember.”

* * *

It had taken the Doctor a lot more probing into his mind, some of it uncomfortable for both of them, but he had eventually told Jamie that a number of blocks were still in place. “Crude things,” he had announced cheerfully. “Should break down in time. I’ve removed the glue that was holding them together, so to speak.”

But all his forced confidence was not enough to hide the despair he only showed when he thought Jamie was not looking. It was clear he was worried that Jamie would never remember – that whatever had passed between them in all that time would be lost forever. He had welcomed Jamie back with great relief, and Jamie was confident that he was overjoyed for them to be back together, but there was a lingering sense of the Doctor missing someone else, the person he had once been.

It was still a rarity to wake up before the Doctor, Jamie thought. He looked so peaceful, still curled around Jamie as if to shelter him, shifting to nuzzle into his chest. Propping himself up on his elbow, Jamie stroked the Doctor’s hair gently. He hated seeing him so clearly upset by Jamie’s missing memories. After a while, the Doctor mumbled something, stirred, and rolled over onto his back, his eyes fluttering open, and Jamie smiled.

“Good morning,” he murmured, leaning down to kiss the Doctor’s forehead lingeringly. The Doctor pushed himself up a little to kiss him on the lips in return before cuddling closer, letting Jamie keep stroking his hair. “Sleepy, are we?”

“Not at all,” came the muffled reply, and Jamie chuckled.

He was silent for a long while, quiet in the face of a realisation that somehow felt like the world was shifting around him, like something was slotting into place, into a previously unnoticed gap in his consciousness. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” the Doctor replied absently – and somehow that was right, too, that was how it was meant to be, had always been. A moment later, however, the Doctor sat bolt upright, pulling Jamie up with him. “What did you say?”

“I love you,” Jamie repeated, a little bemused. “Ye knew that, I know ye did.”

“Yes, but – you didn’t, Jamie.” The Doctor beamed at him. “You’re remembering, aren’t you?” It was only hearing the Doctor that made Jamie register the sensation of memories settling back into his mind. “It’s working. You’re going to remember.”

* * *

“Victoria!”

“Hmm?” The Doctor glanced up from his book to where Jamie was standing in the doorway of his study.

“I remember Victoria,” Jamie announced. “Victoria Waterfield. She’s travelling with us, isn’t she?”

“Ah – yes, Jamie, that’s right,” the Doctor said. In his excitement at another memory returning, Jamie failed to notice the hesitancy in his tone.

“Where is she?” he asked after a moment. “If she’s with us -”

“Graphology lessons,” the Doctor said, a little too quickly.

“Have we no’ left her long enough? It’s been weeks.”

“It’s a time machine, Jamie,” the Doctor said patiently. “We can be as long as we like and still be back an hour after I left her. And anyway, how do you suppose she’d have felt, you coming back and not remembering her?” He looked suddenly exhausted, and Jamie sighed, crossing the room to put his hands on the Doctor’s shoulders reassuringly.

“What’s worrying ye?” he asked.

“Jamie.” The Doctor turned in his chair, looking up at him earnestly and clutching Jamie’s hands to his chest. “I want you to promise me something.”

“Aye, alright.”

“No – no, I want you to promise me that you won’t ask about it. There are things I can’t tell you yet, things it would hurt you to know, and – please believe that I’m trying to look after you, Jamie.”

“Promise.” Jamie kissed his forehead, and the Doctor closed his eyes, leaning up into his contact. “Ye do still want me here?”

“I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t.” The Doctor’s expression brightened suddenly. “You know, Jamie, I think we need a holiday.”

* * *

“It’s no’ easy, ye ken.”

“What’s not easy?”

Jamie rolled over to face the Doctor, taking his hands as he did so, a reassuring point of contact in the unfamiliar darkness of their rooms on Helicon Prime. “All… this.” He gestured between them, and the Doctor gave a little huff of laughter, raising Jamie’s hands to his lips and kissing his knuckles. “Yesterday a lassie said we were sweet together.”

“Did she really?”

“Mm. Then she asked how long we’d been married.”

“Oh.” The Doctor suddenly sounded so very lost, so very sad, but Jamie could not understand why.

“I told her we weren’t, and she said we should be. But I dinnae even know how to answer how long we’ve been together, what with – with travelling in time, and me forgetting things.”

“Three years, six months, and one day.”

“What?”

“That’s how long we’ve been together.” The magnitude of that time stretched out before Jamie, an almost terrifying expanse. Three and a half years – and half of that unremembered. “I wouldn’t mind, you know. If we were married.”

Jamie was shocked into silence for a moment. “Did ye just propose to me?”

“Only if you, ah, wanted me to. Of course, I understand if you don’t -”

Jamie leant in and quietened him with a kiss. “I wouldnae mind either.” He said it almost without thinking, but somehow this felt right. “Wee daftie. Of course I’ll marry ye – but only if ye get me a ring first.”

* * *

“Ye lied to me.”

“Jamie -”

“Why did ye lie?”

“Jamie!” The sudden sharpness in the Doctor’s tone made Jamie fall silent, momentarily shocked into compliance. “Jamie. I said there were things I couldn’t tell you.”

“Aye, ye did,” Jamie spat. “Ye also promised not to lie to me like that.”

“It was for your own good!”

“Why can’t I decide that for once? It’s always _do this, Jamie, do that, Jamie, do everything I say and don’t ask why_!” Jamie narrowed his eyes, feeling a sudden impulse to lash out, to make the Doctor feel his own hurt. “Do ye even care?”

The Doctor almost seemed to shrink at that, the stubborn set of his shoulders falling as if in defeat, and Jamie immediately regretted it. “Of course I care,” he said. “You know I care, Jamie. That’s why I lied to you. I can’t risk the mental barriers unlocking too quickly – it could destroy your mind.”

“Victoria’s no’ at graphology lessons. She left us.” Jamie’s voice sounded hollow, detached, his anger draining away.

“She did. You didn’t take it well back then, either.” The Doctor hesitated for a moment. “I’m sorry I have to do this.”

“It’s not your fault. And I’m sorry, too.”

“I know.”

* * *

“Quite brisk up here, isn’t it?” The Doctor took in a deep breath as he reached the top of the hill, moving over to stand beside Jamie. His clothes, neat and tidy not half an hour before, had somehow become rumpled with the effort of the climb. “Goodness. Reminds me of when we first met. You know, I almost turned around and went back into the TARDIS? What a mistake _that_ would’ve -”

“We’ve done this before.” Jamie turned away from the Doctor, fiddling with the plaid draped over his chest. He glanced down at the little old church below them, perfectly lonely amongst an expanse of Highland glen.

“Jamie, I – yes. Yes, we have.” He heard the Doctor fumbling in his pockets for something, mysteriously managing to loosen his tie as he did so. “Here.”

He held out something in one hand, and Jamie turned to take it. It was a plain box, just large enough to fit in his palm, and he opened it to reveal a set of rings. “Are they...”

“Our wedding rings, yes.” The Doctor reached out to stroke his thumb over one of them. “From before.”

“Ye cried,” Jamie recalled. “Ye cried all through the ceremony, and ye said I looked so beautiful.”

“You did.” The Doctor’s mouth twitched in a tiny smile. “You still do.”

“Wheesht ye.” Another memory struck him. “We got married on the nicest planet ye could find – only took ye a month. Zoe was our witness. Zoe! I remember Zoe. She found us some flowers, as a wedding present, and it turned out she was allergic to them.” Jamie smiled, taking one of the wedding rings out of the box. His own, he thought.

“You never wore it,” the Doctor said. “At least, not on your finger. You don’t want to lose it, so you wore it around your neck. I didn’t see the difference.”

“I – I know,” Jamie managed at last. How could he have forgotten this? How could he have lost such an important memory?

“We can call it off, if you want,” the Doctor said gently. “There’s still time.”

“No.” Jamie reached out to him, lacing their fingers together. “I want to marry ye again.” He hesitated for a moment. “Come on, _husband_. We’ve got a wedding to go to.”

* * *

“Jamie!”

Snapping into wakefulness, Jamie felt the Doctor’s arms tight around him, gradually becoming aware of being cradled in his lap. The Doctor hugged him closer, and Jamie buried his face in his shoulder.

“They caught ye,” he said shakily. “They caught ye, and took me away, and they were going tae – tae -”

“Who were, Jamie?”

“Your people.” Jamie sat bolt upright, struggling out of the Doctor’s grip. “It wasnae a dream, I remembered it! They sent me back, and that’s why I didnae remember.” The last piece of the puzzle slotting into place should have felt like a relief, but Jamie simply felt empty, hopeless.

“You remember.” The Doctor sighed heavily, ducking his forehead to rest against Jamie’s shoulder. “Oh, Jamie, it’s been so long.”

“What happened?”

“They made me work for them.” Jamie wrapped his arms around the Doctor comfortingly. “Eventually, they let me get you back. All this time, we’ve been working for them. I never meant to lie to you, Jamie. I hate what they made me do.”

Jamie rubbed his back soothingly, pulling the Doctor even closer. “I know. It’s not your fault.” He hesitated. “How long was it? For ye?”

The Doctor was silent for long minutes. “One day I’ll tell you,” he said quietly.

“Aye, alright. Just… promise not to lie to me, if ye can.”

“Promise.”


End file.
